Mister Dobson goes through history pulling out huge historical events that exemplify what people considered as Impossible Projects. He reviews the history of the project, how it was solved, and relates the resolutions to Project Management Knowledge areas that are best exemplified by that solution. Each of the projects looked impossible at the time, but they were solved. One or many of the Project Management constraints were worked around for the event completion.

Overview of Book’s Structure

A foreword by Mark Davis (Former White House Speechwriter to President George H.W. Bush) discusses Americans recent history and how the environment in which we live has changed over the last 60 years. He hits the highlights of recent events within Business, Education, the Middle East, Leadership, Health care and government to set the tone for the book “a mindless system of imperatives is strangling us.”

Mister Dobson set the tone for the book in the first two chapters, discussing the typical Project Management experience of an Impossible Project and what you can do. How you need to “face reality squarely.” Continues on what does impossible mean within the boundaries of the Project Management Triple Constraints. How does the Project Manager work to redefine those constraints and talks about the Godzilla Principle, “if you find a baby monster, you should kill it.”

In the succeeding chapters he goes through different events in history starting with the Siege of Alesia, the Spirit of St. Louis, Patton at the Battle of the Bulge, Apollo 13 and the Tylenol Murders (as just some of the events) and discusses how they were considered Impossible, yet they were completed. What made them a success from a Project Management perspective, what constraint or constraints were modified to make it a success.

A summarization chapter concludes the book with a list of Project Management questions and activities that a Project Manager should be asking and doing for their projects in preparation for an Impossible Project assignment.

Donald Hansen has been a Project Manager for over 25 years with AT&T, Sabre, EDS, and Hewlett-Packard. Don has managed projects from just a few days in length to larger projects lasting over three plus years in length and multi-million dollars. He has been a Project Auditor reviewing internal Corporate Projects, identifying troubled projects, and assisting in placing projects back on schedule and on budget. Working in communications and transportation industries, both applications development and hardware upgrades, he greatly enjoys the high pressure projects of Airline Merger Projects. Don can be contacted at [email protected].

Editor’s note: This book review was the result of a partnership between the publisher, PM World and the PMI Dallas Chapter. Authors and publishers provide the books to PM World; books are delivered to the PMI Dallas Chapter, where they are offered free to PMI members to review; book reviews are published in the PM World Journal and PM World Library. PMI Dallas Chapter members can keep the books as well as claim PDUs for PMP recertification when their reviews are published. Chapter members are generally mid-career professionals, the audience for most project management books. If you are an author or publisher of a project management-related book, and would like the book reviewed through this program, please contact [email protected].

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